Excellent report and even better edit on Dec 28, 2008. Keep up the great work. One of the important follow ups can be seeing what happens to the conditions under which the environmental clearances are given and what happens to the environment management plans submitted with the clearances. And if there are consequences when the conditions are not adhered to and EMPs are not implemented, rather laws are violated with impunity. The Ministry of Environment and Forests is not just a rubber stamp, it seems to be an agent of environmental destruction, the way they have been performing. Another way to look at MEF's performance would be see how many of the projects that come to them are rejected. Very few, and that also mostly becasue of the limitations imposed due to the Supreme Court directives. In case of Allain Duhangan Hydropower project in Himachal Pradesh, this IFC (International Finance Corporation - the private sector arm of the World Bank) has an interesting approach: violate the law with impunity, pay fines when cought. It has paid fine to the tune of over Rs 7 crores in less than three years of its functioning. And it was amazing to see that the ministry rewarded the company with more forest land recently. The monitoring offices of the MEF do not have either any proper guidelines for monitoring the complaince of the law or conditions, nor do they seem to have any mandate. They do not do any surprise visits to the projects, in fact they pay visits using the facilities of the project promoters! And in case of National Hydroelectric Power Corporation, the ministry gives it clearances to projects like Chamera 3 and Parbati 3 even when the state government wrote to the MEF that these projects should not be given clearances. In case of Karcham Wangtoo Hydropower project, the ministry refuse to add the conditions recommended by the state govt. As they say, "log to ankhon me dhul jhonkte hain, ye to puri ki puri ankhen hi dhul main jhonkte hain."